The Taste of Color

To the average tongue, the color "red" doesn't have a flavor or a smell. But color can affect how we perceive the world in so many ways - including how things taste and smell!

Hosted by: Hank Green
----------

----------
----------
Looking for SciShow elsewhere on the internet?
----------
Sources:

Images:

[ezmoore]

"This drink is purple. Purple is a fruit." -Homer J. Simpson

[chenoaholdstock]

Can confirm this. I make ice-cream, and the strawberry ice-cream 100% tastes better if I add pink food colour.

[NewMessage]

My ex wife loved green peppers for one reason, and one reason only... they "Taste green." That's it. She thought green peppers were the only thing she'd ever tasted that tasted 'right', as far as their color went, and the satisfaction that gave her was enough to put them at the top of her food list.

[its_sigh]

The light blue vanilla tootsie roll is the perfect candy and packaging.

[bjornmu]

I remember once at an airport I bought an ice cream that was yellow and was very surprised when it tasted strawberry 🍓. It was a very odd experience. I've also picked yellow raspberries and I couldn't quite convince myself they tested like red ones, but they probably did.

[keriezy]

4th grade a girl did a science experiment with 7uP. She added food coloring and had kids try the drinks and then asked their favorite and why. Most said red tasted like cherry and orange of orange.... but they were ALL the same!

[AlphaWolf]

Can confirm color influences taste two months ago I had mild covid and lost my sense of taste; it was terrible. When I would see the yellow of a lemon, while eating said lemon I was actually able to taste the lemon slightly but if drank lemonade without any yellow, I couldn’t even taste it but a hint of sweetness.

[thymewizard]

This is why I always put turmeric in tofu scramble to make it yellow. You can't taste the turmeric at all, but it definitely improves the overall dish.

[bobbobber]

Not totally related, but once I made a meal in which people were blindfolded
and when people started to eat, we were going around with a thing full of nitrogen and spices.
(so the nitrogen was going back to gas with the smell of the spices in it)
People were tasting the meal with those spices even if there was none in the dishes.
Eating is such an interesting science.

[pvtpaink]

I figured this out when I was a teenager because realized I was eating M&M's in order of color. Red, blue, green, orange, yellow, brown.

[LupinoArts]

In a past life, I studied linguistics and some of those results sound awefully familiar. May it be that those findings are less about visual (colour) and trigeminal (taste) perception during testing, but more about word procesing when answering the multiple choice queries afterwards?

[TheAureliac]

I always buy cobalt blue glasses because they make water taste cleaner and colder.

[Richard_Jones]

Our company makes a green mouthwash that all the newbies say smells minty depite it being flavoured with aniseed.

[Yiyitama]

@scishow psych: So, legitimate question! In these types of sight-to-taste based studies, would a blind person be considered a control result, seeing (excuse the pun) as their lack of sight would result in a “truer answer” as color would have no influence over their decision?

[isabel.bolivia]

I've always loved everything purple, the colour, beverages made of grape, blackberries, blueberries 😍💜

[noisemagician]

When I took a high dose of mushrooms, I experienced synesthesia, I could taste colours, my friend was wearing a bright purple shirt and I tasted the colour of his shirt.

[maxximumb]

I still want to know who decided that raspberry flavour was sometimes blue.

[cristinaw]

After watching this video, it make a lot more sense to why Lulu say ' Hmmm~ that taste like purple~ '

[avariceseven]

I notice this in a lot of channels that involves eating food. When describing food with color, they tend to describe them using common food/fruit that has that color.

[sarahgray]

This is interesting, but when you consider that a lot of foods are the same colour but have vastly different tastes (eg:chocolate, brown rice and Worchestershire sauce are all brown, limes and spinach are green, et cetera) it's not a very accurate way to tell what something is going to taste like. A person who encounters a piece of grilled salmon for the first time might assume its pretty pink colour and delicate sparkly scales might assume it was some sort of dessert by it's looks, but be suprised by it's intense savoury taste, and at the other end of the scale chocolate mousse looks like doo-doo but tastes divine.